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Sustainability

We’re focused on building a sustainable future through our own ambitious climate goals and by helping others use our technology to achieve their climate goals too. The cloud brings tremendous opportunity to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges and create new solutions. We have sustainability firmly in mind as we build our hyper-scale cloud.

  • Microsoft strives to be a good neighbor in the communities in which it operates, that includes investing in people through digital skilling, philanthropy and sustainably operated datacenters. The Aotearoa datacenter region will be the most sustainable datacenter region so far in the Microsoft worldwide fleet, including the 100 per cent renewables-powered Swedish model.
  • The Carbon Benefits of Cloud Computing report showed that moving IT infrastructures from traditional datacenters to the cloud reduced companies’ carbon emissions by 72 per cent, with smaller enterprises realising the biggest efficiencies.

  • When accounting for our use of renewable energy, emissions savings with Microsoft Cloud can reach 98 per cent.
  • Globally, we made a promise to not only go carbon neutral, but carbon negative by 2030. By 2050, we aim to have removed all the carbon we’ve ever produced from the environment.
  • In 2022, we launched the Accelerating the Journey Towards Net Zero report, which provides deep insights into New Zealand’s performance on decarbonisation across multiple sectors. We examined the barriers to achieving net zero carbon and how to overcome these.

  • With around 80 per cent of NZ’s electricity currently from renewable sources, and with plans from the government to take this to 100 per cent, we are well-placed to make New Zealand’s datacenter region some of the most energy efficient and sustainable on the planet.
  • Our datacenters will be built to our latest design, seeking LEED cert, UL waste cert and renewable power supply

Our Aotearoa datacenter pledge: Microsoft’s datacenter region powered by 100% carbon free energy from day one 

  • Microsoft’s New Zealand datacenter region will be powered by 100% carbon free energy from day one. Through an agreement with sustainable electricity provider Ecotricity, the three datacenters will only use Toitū net carbonzero certified electricity sourced from solar, wind and hydro.  
  • Ecotricity is working to create a 100% renewable energy grid by 2030 and Microsoft is thrilled to have found an energy supplier whose sustainability values so closely align with its own.  
  • Across the globe, Microsoft is on a mission to replenish more water than it consumes by 2030. Microsoft’s Aotearoa datacenters will be the first to be 100% water free. How does this work? Instead of using water, the datacenter region will ensure your data is stored at the right temperature using air cooling.  
  • Find more about how Microsoft and Ecotricity plan to work together to create a renewable future for New Zealand here

Public Cloud Services Opportunities and Dividend to the New Zealand Economy 

  • Aotearoa has certainly been a leader in public cloud adoption. In recent years, it has gone from being used for disaster recovery/backup services, to being a tool used to drive digital transformation and innovation.  
  • In its research, IDC found that the broad-based public cloud adoption we are currently seeing in New Zealand is not only beneficial for cloud adopters, but for the whole of Aotearoa. As adoption grows, so does the economy. Learn more about IDC’s findings on the predominant economic impacts of public cloud adoption in Aotearoa  here.